There are currently around 700 groups of orchid species known as genera. For this project, Studio Pollen developed a custom AI model trained on hundreds of images of orchid species belonging to the 61 genera that begin with the letter "A", according the Kew Botanical Gardens' official plant database.
"The Metamorphosis of the Plants" features a collection of novel digital orchid species generated by this AI model. The title pays homage to Goethe's influential book on plant morphology published in 1790, in which he theorised that there exists a fundamental plant form called the "Urpflanze" or "Urplant" which acts as an archetypal blueprint for all plants.